Hillside, Naramata Bench

Contributed - Jun 18, 2017 / 5:00 am | Story: 199753

Photo: Contributed

Wine: Muscat Ottonel, 2015

Winery: Hillside, Naramata Bench

Why drink it? The flagship wine, a white, from Hillside Estate, the vines have been on the property since it was first planted three decades ago. The older the vines, the more intriguing the wine. If your white wine tastes are somewhere between the spectrum of sweet to dry, this is a great bottle in between. A light touch of sweetness with a tropical spice note, on the nose there is an essence of orange blossom, with flavours of tart apple, candied ginger, and a lightness on the finish. An “easy drinking” wine, with just enough complexity to start a lively conversation.

Price: $22

Pair with: This is your go to wine for sushi, as its hints of spice match with sushi sidekicks wasabi and pickled ginger, and the light sweetness of sushi rice matches the same element in the wine. Pad Thai is a great dish as well, or steelhead trout lightly treated with lemon and garlic.

Classic cancon music pairing: Jolie Louise, Daniel Lanois

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About the Author

As a kid, Shelley Boettcher often found herself in the back seat of a pick-up, exploring the back roads of the Okanagan Valley with her parents. They’d occasionally leave her and her brother in the car while they stopped at mysterious addresses to buy wine. They would emerge, clearly happy, as they stuck a box or a few bottles in the vehicle. Then they would continue on their journey.

But it wasn’t until a trip to Spain in 2000 that Shelley herself fell in love with wine. She came home from the holiday and promptly told her editor she wanted to become a wine writer.

And she did.

An award-winning food and wine writer and editor, Shelley holds her master’s degree in journalism and her advanced WSET certification, as well as her level 2 International Sommelier Guild certification. A wine columnist for the Calgary Herald, she spent a decade as CBC Radio’s national syndicated wine columnist and she has written three books about wine, including two that were Canadian bestsellers. Her byline has appeared in magazines and newspapers around the world, including the New York Times, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail and Postmedia newspapers across Canada.

Shelley has travelled throughout many of the world’s wine regions and countries, including Niagara, Oregon, Washington, California, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Australia, Germany, Argentina and the Republic of Georgia. A few years ago, she even tracked down and visited a winery in Denmark.

Shelley has also served as a professional wine judge regionally and internationally, including the Okanagan Wine Festivals, Vinitaly and the Chianti Classico Consortium. For more than a decade, she has been a restaurant wine list judge for the Vancouver International Wine Festival, too. She still teases her parents for sparking her love for wine, especially BC wine.

And her favourite? Whatever she's drinking at the moment.

You can follow Shelley on Instagram @shelleyboettcher or Twitter at @shelley_wine.

If you have a BC wine you’d like to suggest, email Shelley at [email protected] with the name of the wine and a short note about why you enjoyed it.